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Biography

Amanda Sammann, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of general surgery at the University of California, San Francisco and the Founder and Executive Director of The Better Lab; a venture that uses design to study and fix health care challenges. Dr. Sammann is a general surgeon who practices trauma surgery, acute care surgery and surgical critical care at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG).

Dr. Sammann received a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University, a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University and a Medical Degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her surgical training at UCSF and her critical care fellowship at Oregon Health & Sciences University. Dr. Sammann also spent two years as the Medical Fellow and Medical Director at the Silicon Valley design firm, IDEO.

Dr. Sammann has spent a lifetime trying to make things better. She has built novel content for health websites, developed surgical training curriculum, designed medical products and fixed dozens of health care systems challenges. Dr. Sammann has expertise in Human Centered Design (HCD) and is leading research at ZSFG to implement and study the HCD process in the health care setting. She lectures on innovation and design locally and nationally.

Research Overview

Dr. Sammann is the Founder and Executive Director of The Better Lab, a multidisciplinary venture that conducts human centered design research. The goal of her research is to develop new ways to fix health care challenges through greater empathy and better design and to study these novel methods and their outcomes with rigorous public health methodologies. Early research initiatives are focused on health care systems quality improvement at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.

Please note: UCSF Profiles publications are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Researchers can login to make corrections and additions, or contact CTSI for help.

In the News

Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General - December 05, 2018

Trauma surgeons at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center have been among the strongest proponents for physicians speaking out on the issue of gun violence and conducting research to reduce suffering and prevent needless and tragic deaths. They have harnessed the power of Twitter in the service of community outreach and effecting social change.
Notably, Rachael A. Callcut, M.D., MSPH was among the group that created the Twitter handle, @ThisIsOurLane and Andre Campbell, [...]

On May 17, the Second Annual UCSF Engineering for Children's Health Symposium was held at Mission Bay Conference Center. Over one hundred clinicians, engineers, scientists, administrators, industry professionals, and government partners gathered to discuss groundbreaking research and developing technologies in pediatric medicine.
The event commenced with opening remarks by Hanmin Lee, MD, Surgeon-in-Chief of the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals and Professor and Chief of the UCSF Division [...]

UCSF Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General - Richard Barg - March 14, 2017

Amanda Sammann, M.D., M.P.H., a UCSF trauma surgeon based at Zuckerberg San Francisco General, recently launched The Better Lab, an innovative research program based on human-centered design in healthcare. With her co-founders, Design Director Susan Dix Lyons and Researcher Lara Chehab, The Better Lab is focused on addressing health care challenges through greater empathy and better design using rigorous public health methodologies.
A recent blogpost on the site by Susan Dix Lyons, How The [...]

UCSF Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General - Richard Barg - March 14, 2017

Amanda Sammann, M.D., M.P.H., Executive Director of The The Better Lab, and an Assistant Professor of Surgery based at ZSFG, has contributed a work to the Hearts of San Francisco, a public art installation started by the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation in 2004. Dr. Sammann's hand-crafted heart, called "Stem to Stern," powerfully memorializes the patients she served as a resident at San Francisco General Hospital a decade ago – and serves as a poetic homecoming to the institution where [...]